Celebrity selfies not welcome on Cannes red carpet

Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux may not have the power to enforce a complete ban on celebrities taking selfies on the red carpet, but he’s doing his very best to stop it happening when the A-listers descend upon the French city in a few weeks’ time.

Frémaux told The Guardianat the press conference revealing the first round of this year’s festival premieres: “We are waging a campaign to slow down the contemporary practice of selfies on the red carpet and the steps. Beyond what we think, it’s a practice that’s often extremely ridiculous and grotesque.”

“We don’t want to prohibit it but it’s really a matter of timing,” he continued. “We have a certain amount of time to get people across the red carpet and up the steps and it really slows things down if people stop every two metres to take a picture of themselves, with themselves.”

Well, Kim Kardashian might argue with that statement but it’s true that we’re growing accustomed to seeing selfies popping up on celebrities’ social media accounts, mere minutes after they’ve walked the red carpet. And even press shots of stars caught in the act of snapping themselves, like Rosario Dawson at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (above).

We totally get why celebs want to take some control over the images of them that end up online and engage directly with their fans over social media. Perhaps, as a compromise, they could restrict their selfie activity to the Cannes after parties? After all those are the pictures the world really wants to see.